I wrote the following excerpt in the midst of my battle with cancer:
The only certainty in life is God and His love for me. I realize that I need to fully trust in God’s goodness, recognizing
that He could take me anywhere and ask me to do anything. I have been
afraid to live my life-afraid of what will be taken away from me.
Sometimes, I’ve tried to hold on so tight that I have missed life to the
full. God is giving me the opportunity to trust Him for everything
now. Life is scary anyway, I might as well yield it all to God. I
don’t have the power to pick my life up from the brink, I can only
trust, and wait to see what God will do. He promised to work all things
together for my good. I need to trust to the point that I believe that
He can work my prolonged suffering and/or death out for the good of my
family-as impossible as that is for me to grasp.
Like any decent husband and father, I long to give
my wife and children the very best of everything that I can. I love to
go to all of Tyler’s baseball games, Anna’s horse riding lessons, their
school plays, or take Kailey to the park and let her play in the sand at
the volleyball court. I want to give them the gift of me- my time,
energy and attention. That is why the thought of dying now has haunted
me so much. What will my kids think of God if He takes me from them?
How will Laurie play the role that I desperately want to play in my kids
lives? What will Laurie do without the husband she has invested so much
of her life in, the husband who finally “gets it”?
I cannot answer these questions, but God can.
Please do not think that God is not good just because there is suffering
in the world, or because a young father is taken from his family against
his will. In the bible, God promised us that our lives would be filled
with many trials and tribulations. He DID NOT promise an easy life for
His followers, in fact, quite the opposite. God knows, and clearly
articulates in His word, that this life is scarred with sin, pain and
death. He sent His beloved Son, Jesus, to become a man, a perfect
sacrifice to pay the penalty for the sins that we commit, so that we can
have a choice. Do we want to live for ourselves and therefore
completely waste our precious lives, or do we want to yield completely
to God’s will in our lives by spending it for Him, and gain eternal
meaning and glory in the process?
The choice is not whether we want an easy life, or
a hard life. We will have a hard life whether we follow Christ or not.
We will be led on a journey with an uncertain outcome, whether we follow
Christ or not. But if we follow the Good Shepherd, we can be sure of
the final outcome…glory and beauty beyond compare in God’s unspeakably
magnificent presence FOREVER.
Please do not believe the illusion that you control
your life. Don’t believe the foolishness that there is no God. The
reality is that you will face Him one day, no doubt about it.
Please use the contact form if you have any
questions about how to surrender your life to Jesus Christ. I would
love to help you in any way I can.
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